US hip hop Oz style
by Cyclone

Street culture is flourishing (as ever) in our capital cities. In March, Sydney successfully hosted its inaugural Urban X-Pressions festival. The hype came at the perfect time for Mushroom Distribution Services, currently pushing the second compilation in its series of homegrown hip hop: "Home Brewz".

Australia can boast several generations of its own hip hop heroes: Just Us, Blaze, Mamas Funks, Def Wish Cast, DJ Ransom, Wicked Beat Sound System, Brethren, Wicked Force Breakers. However any suggestion from the media that hip hop is making a comeback in this country is bound to be squashed. The response from Trent Roden (the architect of Sydney's Slingshot Concepts) says it all: 'It's all down to the whole capitalist, corporate money-making machine, which wants to create these highs and lows within a culture,' he argues. 'Hip hop needs to transcend that.'

Rightly perhaps, Australian hip hoppers regard the media with suspicion. It's no revelation that, bar Will Smith, even the most blatantly commercial end of US hip hop music is ignored by this country's radio stations. Let's make no bones about it: racial prejudice is in full effect. More worrying for genuine lovers of Black music is the antipathy the hardcore hip hop scene has for the R&B one. At the end of the day both genres are passed over by the mainstream for the same reason. Radio doesn't play Brethren, Common or Jodeci.

Much of the US hip hop and R&B finds its core audience in ethnically diverse, blue collar areas. By contrast, in the US the culture is crossing over into comfortable suburbia as never before -- and potentially hip hop is succeeding where liberal politicians failed in American schools by giving kids from different ethnic backgrounds a common interest. Still, hip hop's positive virtues are always swept aside.

Above all, Australian hip hoppers are wary of selling out. Most of those active in the grassroots culture defend an altogether alternative value system. Homegrown hip hop is virtually free of the gangsta, Mafioso or Colombian imagery that prevails in American rap. There will always be the odd wannabe G but the underground is yet to produce a 2Pac.

Altercations happen, of course. Subcultures invariably have their own political factions. And so Australian hip hop is not without its playa haters. Ironically, participants in the culture are divided over the question of whether there is unity or not. A beef can be triggered by something as marginal as a rapper who sounds too American. It comes back to Australian hip hop's cultural battle for its own identity.

In 1996 a "Rolling Stone" (Australia) feature, "Yo, Australia Raps", offered a fine overview of the scene in Australia. Nevertheless, it seems ironic that the main gist of the article was homegrown hip hop's lower economic status. The industry regards Oz hip hop as unmarketable, the writer argued, so the kids are doing it on their own. What didn't fully emerge in the story was the ambivalence many hold towards the commercialism of hip hop, period. In 1998 this sentiment is stronger than ever before. Much of the hip hop coming out of this country is reactive to what is perceived as its ostentatious US step-parent. Entrepreneurialism isn't necessarily a dirty word. But it appears 'Puffy' is. It all has to do with selling out.

But if Australian hip hop has a heretic, it's Lioncub, possibly the country's most versatile beatmaker. Lioncub is one half of Sydney's Raised By Wolves and also works under the guise of Re:Kindle, producing jungle. While Lioncub's outlook goes against many of his peers, he is among the most astute.

Lioncub believes that Australian hip hop in general is dragged down by the myths it creates for itself. What perturbs him is the US-derived 'keepin' it real' mentality. 'I think that's the one thing that's constantly set me at odds with a lot of people in Sydney,' he says. 'I break it down as a childish attitude towards a subculture. They're in it because they want to belong to something.' That in itself is not a bad thing. But the prevailing value judgments bug Lioncub. He cites the example whereby the innovative US producer Timbaland is considered wack by many hip hoppers despite the fact that his sound is a natural development from T La Rock and Def Jam's golden era. 'I can't see how heads who are into all that stuff can't hear Timbaland's production and dig it.'

There has long been a subcultural resistance to other forms infiltrating hip hop -- be it techno, house, R&B, jungle. But Lioncub points out that the electro so beloved by hip hoppers has influenced Detroit techno more than it has, say, Gang Starr.

'One thing I've noticed is everyone can diss Puffy,' Lionrub rues. 'It's like, "We might not see eye to eye, but we both hate Puffy" -- it's a sort of scapegoating thing. Somehow dissing Puffy makes them real.' Lioncub doesn't look on mainstream American hip hop with the usual antagonism. 'The way commercial hip hop is now is really old skool,' he pitches, ' -- even the way people dress is more like Grandmaster Flash. We're now seeing LL Cool J wearing these full leather outfits, or gold lame outfits, in his videos. It's close to the way Melle Mel used to dress -- really theatrical and showbizzy.' Lioncub even questions the status of hip hop's four disciplines -- emceeing, DJing (turntablism), breakdancing and graffiti. 'People want to go back to some imaginary time when the four elements all existed together, but I don't know if that's the way it really started. I think that's more like a European or Australian perspective.'

Lioncub's ventures into jungle (typically regarded in dance media quarters as UK hip hop) have been eye-opening, since this relatively new scene is made up of people from varied backgrounds. He can play hip hop at a jungle night but not vice versa. When it comes to the crunch, Lioncub objects to the old skool hardliners, who seem to have imposed their cultural values on hip hop's history. 'That's what I find offensive,' he says ' -- that moral element of purity and authenticity.'